Day to day life

in the shadow of the IBB radio station

in Holzkirchen/Oberlaindern, Germany

We were astonished at the recurrence of ailments among the people living here: sleep disorders, pains in the limbs, sounds in the ears, nervousness, muscle twitching, susceptibility to infections. In many houses there are also cases of cancer. The same symptoms come to light in scientific studies and interviews concerning people living next to other high-power radio stations, for example in northern Germany and Switzerland.

Our interviews do not pretend to be a scientific study. But they do depict, authentically, the everyday life of the people in the small Upper Bavarian village of Oberlaindern. The everyday life of people overshadowed by a US radio station that for the past 50 years has called itself the "Voice of Freedom".

Here you can read extracts from the interviews. You can find out what is going on in Oberlaindern. Perhaps you are a politician and can do something to help stop the broadcasts from Oberlaindern. We hope there are politicians in the USA who can reach such a decision. It would be a decision demonstrating respect for the life of the people in Oberlaindern.

The names of the persons interviewed are kept anonymous for reasons of data protection, but they are known to the Sender Freies Oberland citizens' initiative. All interviews and other details of the questionnaire were authorized by the signatures of those questioned, who have also agreed to use of the information before a court of law.

When we moved here 20 years ago, we first noticed how strong the station was through items in the household. On the telephone it came through louder than the person speaking at the other end. We could hear it from the record player, on all radios, in the kitchen sink. You could even hear the station loud and clear from pots standing on the cooker. To begin with we found this quite amusing. Today the TV switches off all by itself in the morning. First it does it after about half an hour, and then every two minutes. But it never happens in the evening.

When I think of my health since I've been living here, a lot comes to mind. At the age of 48, seven years ago, I was operated for a mammary carcinoma. If, as the doctors say, cancer has an incubation period of 15 years, then this ailment dated from when we first came here. I'm the first one in the family for generations to get cancer.

By nature, I like to sleep, and to sleep long. But it's just not possible. I frequently wake up in the second half of the night. And I'm always fully awake from 5:00 onwards, no matter how late I go to bed. It's a long time since I've had any dreams.

My constant tiredness is extreme. In the morning I often feel utterly shattered, dog-tired, and with strong sensations of giddiness. But my blood pressure isn't low, quite the opposite. And then I'm just good for nothing for the rest of the day.

What's especially bad is my constant pains in the back and the muscular tension that I so often get. My muscles literally block, making my arms and legs go numb. I don't get any of this if I'm staying somewhere else, like on vacation for instance. It only happens here.

About three years ago I had a serious heart attack with stabbing pains. I still get such pains and, for fear of something happening, I don't dare to breathe deeply. But doctors haven't been able to find anything wrong with my heart.

I'm very susceptible to infections. It's always the same, first the nose is afflicted, then the bronchial tubes, and finally the sinuses. I get this about every six weeks, and then it lasts for at least three weeks. Many of our friends have only known me in a state of ill health for years now.

I fall asleep easily, but for days on end I always wake up at the same time – in the middle of the night! I don't dream. For as long as I lived in my parents' house outside Oberlaindern, I used to sleep like a log, and I dreamt a lot.

Now I'm 34 and have rheumatoid arthritis. I frequently get the feeling that a tendon is blocking my arm when I try to move it. First there's a stabbing pain, then something like a crack, and after that the arm is flexible again.

I often come home full of energy, raring to go. But it doesn't last long, I soon feel that I need to rest. I've noticed how it happens quite suddenly, this utter tiredness. I didn't used to be like that.

I'm a pilot and have to go for a special medical check every two years. I was always the picture of health. That changed abruptly in Oberlaindern. Suddenly the sugar in my blood was such a level that I had difficulty keeping my pilot's license. I never eat anything sweet, don't drink alcohol and survive virtually on a diet. There had never been cases of diabetes in the family.

My father was also always fit and healthy, my mother too. She was extremely active, had an answer to everything and did a lot of work in the community. She was always involved in something. Then she hadn't been here long and had two strokes within a short space of time. Now she's in a nursing home.

My father said that when he came to me his eyes suffered. Then he started getting really depressive and never wanted to leave the house. And before he used to love getting the car out and going for a ride. He came to me as healthy as can be and three months later he was a sick man. He had headaches all the time and said there was whistling in his ears. When he had to go into a home, he didn't complain any more, he said he was really happy.

I get the whistling in my ears too. When I'm in the bathroom, facing the radio station, it suddenly comes and won't go. When I'm away, and I have to travel a lot, I never get it. And then I'm much more active than here, I feel fit and full of go in the mornings.

People who know me well and visit me here ask what's wrong, why I'm so hectic and nervous. I think they notice it when I speak. Here I tend to speak so hastily and get caught up in my own words, but it disappears when I'm elsewhere.

At the beginning, nine and a half years ago, the radio station didn't bother me at all. But all the disturbance to the telephone and other appliances began to make me suspicious. If it could do that to technical appliances, what could it be doing to my health, I thought. If I hold my hand about two inches over my CD player, the music stops. It's like a magic trick. I now have the third player within one year. When the loudspeakers are connected to it, it's real hell! I can hear the station loud and clear – but no music.

I haven't been able to sleep very well since I've lived here. It takes me so long to fall asleep that it's impossible for me to be rested by the morning. I've also been having a lot of trouble with my digestion and bowels. Before Christmas the pains were bad. Then I was away for six days and they disappeared. I was hardly home again and they reappeared. At the moment I can just about bear it.

I sleep badly. It takes ages for me to fall asleep, and I often wake up again. I get up very early in the morning, and I dream very seldom.

I've suffered from a muscular ailment for a number of years. It didn't start until I lived here. It took a long time to find out what it was. I also suffer a lot from rheumatism. Sometimes I go to bed and nothing's wrong. But then, in the morning, I can hardly move because of the pains in my arm or leg. Now I'm taking cortisone for the pains.

I often feel worn out, sometimes it lasts until noon. And I'm always sensing an inner uneasiness that makes my blood race. I'm just very nervous.

I never used to get headaches, but they've been acute for the past eighteen months. And my muscle twitching is extreme, you can literally see the muscles hopping.

If there's any influenza going about, I'm always bound to get it immediately. I've become very susceptible to infections since I've lived here.

I was operated on for abdominal cancer at the age of 44.

When we moved here in 1989, my eldest son started suffering from sleeplessness. He used to wake up and couldn't fall asleep again. Even today he can never sleep beyond 5:00 in the morning. Then, of course, he's tired all day and has problems concentrating. At school he's very restless and gets worked up about nothing and everything. He and his brother are very quarrelsome and aggressive to one another.

My problem in the morning is that I often wake up without the feeling of having really rested, even though I went to bed early. I simply feel I haven't regenerated myself in any way. And I often wake up with a headache.

My other son (7) also knows what headaches are. He complains a lot about them, and about stomach aches. It lasts a long time until they're gone. And all our children tend to get bronchial infections so fast and so easily.

Since I've lived here I've been extremely susceptible to colds and sinusitis. Irritability and tension – I hardly knew what they were before. Today I find my moodiness quite extreme.

I've lived in Oberlaindern for ten years. Here I'm nervous, I feel uneasy all over, which never used to be the case. My husband, in particular, notices it very much.

I'm 34 years old. I have pains in my arm and shoulder. They come quite suddenly, stay for a few days and then disappear. I don't get them on vacation. And then I'm quite different when I wake up in the morning, I always feel more refreshed. I used to dream a lot and I liked it. But that's a thing of the past. Sometimes I lie in bed in the morning feeling really worn out and not wanting to get up. I think it's because I sleep so badly. My second son (8) manages to sleep through the night but is terribly restless. He's constantly tossing and turning. He and my husband often get severe bronchitis. Actually my husband has always got one illness or another. He's always picking up an infection, and he's 37. Is that normal, that someone of his age should so often have to keep to his bed because of high temperature and bronchitis?

My sleep is never what you would call restful. I also notice that I'm very tensed up when sleeping, because in the morning I often feel the tightness in the back of my neck. Sometimes I really have to force myself to do things in the morning – I'd rather go back to bed because I'm so worn out.

If I do dream at all in the night, which is seldom enough, then it's always nightmares. So my husband has to wake me up. My youngest daughter is scared of sleeping alone because of the bad dreams she has.

I've lived here for 18 years. Basically I'm an easy-going person, not at all quarrelsome. But I've noticed that here I'm more likely to fly off the handle than I used to. When our first child was born, 18 years ago, I realized that here in Oberlaindern I had a different feeling in my body than elsewhere. I always feel unwell somehow. When I'm somewhere else, I feel well all over. I notice it in a lot of ways. Sometimes for example, for no reason at all my finger starts twitching. I get the same sensation with my eyes, a sudden twitching. I suffer from noises in my ears too, mainly when lying down. It's not whistling, like in the case of my eldest daughter, it's more like a heartbeat. It usually appears in the evening after I go to bed.

My daughter has had this high-pitched whistling in her ears, tinnitus, for years already. No doctor has been able to help her. She just has to live with it, like with her very bad attacks of migraine.

I just can't fall asleep before two or three in the morning. I dream very little and my sleep isn't particularly restful, because in the mornings I often feel so depressed and shattered. And slowly I have to try to get on my feet again.

For years I suffered from depression and used to perspire a lot during the night. My hair was always soaking wet when I woke up.

The depression didn't start until I lived here. There came the day when I no longer knew what to do. So I collected 68 sleeping tablets and swallowed them.

I got rid of the TV in 1989. It was always full of interference.

I've had irregular heartbeat since the end of the 50s when I was barely 20 years old. It got so bad that I had to give up my job. I'm very nervous here, and my wife gets worked up about it.

What's noticeable is that I've become very susceptible to infections. I soon catch influenza, and I get attacks of rheumatism. Sometimes my arm pains me so much that I'm unable to lift anything. I can't even stretch it out without it hurting. For many years I had to take medication for asthma. Both my wife and I suffer from my inability to remember things.

The only time I feel right is when I'm in the mountains or on vacation.

I've always got pains from the hips downwards. A few years ago I couldn't even walk. The doctors said it was severe osteoporosis. Then it disappeared for a long while. But the pains have been back since one year ago. And again they're extremely unpleasant. I have a lot of trouble sleeping. I can't sleep through till morning because my sleep is so light. So I always feel really worn out.

I'm extremely nervous. And I notice that I often feel cold, for no reason at all, although the temperature might be 70 degrees or more. My husband is always saying that something's wrong with me. I have high blood pressure, like my brother and my mother. They used to live here in Oberlaindern too. Both died from a stroke.

Our TV wouldn't work without a filter. But you can't put a filter in the people living here.

I don't have any trouble sleeping, but I don't have any dreams either. I'm now 37 years old, but sometimes I feel like a car driving with the handbrake on. More and more often I feel so completely whacked.

I've become increasingly sick during the past five years. I get bronchitis, run a high temperature and lack energy. It's more or less like this. My temperature goes up in the course of the morning and increases more by the evening. The next morning it's normal and then starts to go up again. This carries on for about five days and then everything is over. The doctor has given me a thorough checkup but can't find anything.

Something strange happened to me a while back. I wanted to work on my computer at about 15:00 but suddenly I couldn't see anything on the monitor. Everything before my eyes was gray and hazy. I could only make out the outline of the people sitting near me. I wasn't dizzy, I didn't feel sick or have trouble with my circulation, and I didn't have headache either. The doctor couldn't find anything at all wrong with me. I'd never experienced the likes of it before, which is what disturbed me so much.

Sometimes I have difficulty falling asleep and I often wake up quite suddenly in the middle of the night. I often perspire in the night too, I don't know why. And I can't explain why I feel so worn out in the morning.

It's become a lot worse since we've been living here again. In June 1998 I had a kidney transplant – at the age of 35. The doctors couldn't say how the need for it came about. But apparently I had had high blood pressure for some time. Because of this transplant I have to take medication and be especially aware of infection. And I notice that I'm more susceptible than I used to be.

I often get whistling in my ears when I'm in bed. I tell myself: "You're on air", because it's a noise like when you're tuning to a station on the radio.

My husband has trouble getting asleep. He keeps waking up, earlier and earlier. I notice that he perspires heavily during the night, so heavily in fact that he has to change his pajamas.

He has nasal inflammation and sinusitis so often that we've given up counting. He gets severe stomach trouble at least every three months. It's colic pure, he vomits and the pains are so severe that he needs injections to overcome them. He's often been in hospital because of this and needed gastroscopy. But the doctors couldn't find anything. The attacks last for about three days. And then it takes at least a week before he's feeling well again. He loses a lot of weight during the course of this.

I lived close to the radio station for about seven years. We could see the masts through the windows. I liked all the lights. We have Christmas decorations all year, I used to tell the children. When we returned from vacation, the red lights seemed to be welcoming us and I knew I was home again.

At that time I continuously suffered from sleeplessness. In the last few years before we moved out of our company house it got really bad and I also had severe bouts of headache. I never thought – nobody did at that time – that this could have anything to do with the radio station, because there was no knowledge of such things. After we moved away, suddenly I was able to sleep properly again and my headaches disappeared.

Now the telephone's disturbed from time to time. I often have trouble sleeping, or perspire in the night. My husband got cancer of the bladder a few years back.

I've lived in Oberlaindern since 1990. And since then I've had headaches that get worse all the time, sometimes two weeks without a break. I have trouble sleeping, and perspire in the night. Before I came here I hardly knew what headaches were about. Here I'm constantly ailing, I never used to have colds or influenza. Sometimes the noise in my ears is so intense that I can't hear anything – I'm being treated for it. I'm nervous, my pulse is 100, and my heart beat is irregular. The doctor can't find the cause, even though a longterm electrocardiogram was made. Our son, who is now three, has had neurodermatitis since he was three months old.

I often sleep badly, waking up in the night and unable to fall asleep again, sometimes for hours on end. Now and again I also get headaches.

Our telephone is disturbed, and the television too. Suddenly it switches over by itself, the color is awry and we can hear broadcasts in Russian coming from it. That happens at very different times, in the afternoon too. I have problems with my PC, when sending data for example. When visitors come to the house and press the intercom, they're welcomed by the radio station.

Our telephone is disturbed. It's strange, for years we had no trouble, but since about six months ago we've been picking up the radio station. At present it's really extreme.

Sometimes I'm unable to sleep, I perspire and get noises in my ears.

Both my parents died of cancer, they lived here in this house for almost 20 years.

Our politicians are plain stupid, they're afraid of the Americans. I'll soon be 74 years old. Look, the station's right in front of our house. And round about we've got chronic illnesses. Every day I get bad headaches and terrible pains in my body. The doctor says he can't understand it, so it's no good complaining to him anymore. I get the strongest medication possible, but it still doesn't help. If I go away somewhere I feel better. My wife sleeps badly and also gets headaches and buzzing in her ears – she's also got breast cancer. They did a nuclear spin tomograph to see if she had a brain tumor, but they didn't find anything.

Our son gets very bad headaches. He's had them since he was small. When he was a baby he used to cry and then, as soon as he was old enough, he pointed to his head to show us where it hurt. Later I used to think it was only an excuse not to go to school. But when a 14-year-old voluntarily goes to bed in the middle of the afternoon, that can't be right. Now he's almost grown up and it's a little better. But he still takes more aspirin than all of us.

I myself have Crohn's disease.

When we buy anything electrical, we first let the firm install it here to see if it works properly, and if not we give it back. Our daughter is always picking up the station on her stereo, depending on where she puts it.

We don't need the station. It's horrible. Without it we'd have the most beautiful view in the whole community. But at the moment two thirds of it is taken up by antenna masts. And when there's a storm in the summer, you can see the sparks on the wires and hear them crackling right to our house.

I get disturbance on the television and telephone. It starts at exactly two minutes to seven. I often watch the local news on a particular station, and then, before the weather report, the screen is just full of lines. It's the same with the telephone, and sometimes especially bad. My answering machine starts up, although nobody has called me, and I can hear the broadcasting station on it. And when people do leave recorded messages for me, I can't understand them because they're all mixed up with music – the tape records the station. I can't take any calls after seven in the evening anyway, because all I hear over the phone is the station next door.

In October 1998 I informed Telekom [German national PTT authority]. My telephone equipment is not cheap stuff from a side-street dealer. They said that an authorized electrician would have to build in some filters. So I asked who would have to pay for it. And the answer was that I myself would.

Sometimes I don't sleep too well. I have noises in my ears.

Until three weeks ago I did shift work at Zweckform*. We could feel the local transmitter in the packing machines. During the night shift – never by day – the software operating programs often went wrong, ten times, twenty times, it varied. The counting processes and so the quantities packed changed all by themselves. The machines produced rejects, filled the cartons with the wrong amounts and then pressed them together for example. So Zweckform suffered losses because the performance of its machinery was degraded.

*Zweckform is located in Oberlaindern and the biggest source of employment in the whole region. The management has confirmed in writing the high cost of shielding its plant against the radio waves.

I'm 66 years old and have lived here in our detached house for 35 years, about 900 meters away from the radio station. When we moved here, we got a stainless-steel washing up basin. That's when we first got to know the transmitter, because it sounded out of the basin. The basin had to be grounded and then the effect vanished. But something else has remained. Since I've lived here I've had ailments of one kind or another. They've become worse over the last ten to 15 years. Sometimes I get strong feelings of nervousness and tremble. I've been treated by a neurologist. Every day I have headache and am constantly taking pills. During the night I break out into a sweat. I lay a towel in the bed to soak up the perspiration. And I keep fainting too. We often go away somewhere and then I feel better. But I scarcely start feeling better when it's time to come home again.

Last week I was in the local hospital. The doctors checked me all over. They measured cerebral currents, pushed me in the nuclear spin tomograph, extracted neural fluid from my spinal cord. Their diagnosis – nothing to be found.

In April 1997 we wrote to the district administration: "For all of us who live here it's obvious that the radio station must disappear, and as soon as possible before we all go to the dogs". We're still waiting for an answer.

With me it's similar to my husband. During the night I perspire so heavily that everything's wet, so I have to lie on a bath towel. It can hardly be my climacteric because I'm now 67 years old.

If the politicians had to live here the radio station would have disappeared long ago.

When I want to record a TV program on video for my grandchildren, the set only records lots of stripes. You can see exactly from the structure of the stripes when someone's speaking and when there's a break.

I suffer really bad from sleeplessness, sometimes with headaches and muscular pains on top. When I'm not in Oberlaindern I sleep a whole lot better.

For years I've bred budgerigars. I started doing it because of our children. I used to have between 60 and 70 newly born birds every year. When the radio station started increasing its output a few years ago, there was hardly any offspring. A lot of eggs simply died without hatching, and the birds became more aggressive. And there was a strange phenomenon: quite healthy birds suddenly fell off their perches in the night and remained lying on the floor. They weren't ailing before. A breeder knows a sick bird because it sleeps on two legs instead of one, puffs itself up, and isolates itself from the other birds. That wasn't the case, the birds were top fit, flew onto my shoulder and pecked at the chain round my neck. These birds, and young birds too, suddenly died without any outward sign of something being wrong with them. I think it's due to the radio station, although I can't prove it.

We built our house in Oberlaindern ourselves, piece by piece taking many years. On the day everything was finally finished my husband said: "I'll just clear the tools away". Then he fell down and died. For no obvious reason. People here often just fall down for no obvious reason.

The radio station causes a lot of trouble. When we moved here, our eldest daughter got acne; she was about seven or eight and had always had beautiful skin. The second daughter was a bundle of nerves, she was still small and cried so loud every night that the people next door had to sleep with ear plugs.

When we got our first stereo system (it cost DM 800, a lot of money in those days), the dealer delivered it to the house, connected the plug and suddenly the whole room was full of Czech music. We hadn't even put a disk on the player. The dealer was quite perplex, and the system never really worked properly.

I could never fall asleep in the evening, and in the morning I had trouble getting up. After my husband's death I had to work, and often spent months away from Oberlaindern. During those periods I felt really well and was able to sleep properly. But once I arrived back in Oberlaindern I used to start getting nervous again.

Two years ago I was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. I received radiation therapy, chemotherapy. I knew it was the radio station. Time and again I had thought about moving away. When I got cancer, I knew it was time to leave.

Every morning I wake up feeling a wreck. I'm not refreshed in any way because I can only sleep lightly and often lie awake. For about the last six years I notice that I also perspire very heavily in the night. And my back hurts me so much in the morning that sometimes I don't know how I'm going to get myself out of bed. During the day I work in Munich and don't have any of these symptoms.

I didn't take any notice of the radio station until things in the house started going wrong. On the phone, for instance, you couldn't understand the person at the other end. When the phone rings, I can't hear it. There are a lot of sounds around that I can't make out because they have the same level as the ringing or singing in my ears. I don't have that problem in Munich either.

Since I've been living here, my mother-in-law says I've got increasingly nervous and irritable. I personally find that I'm much more hectic than I used to be. And I have to write down everything I must do, because I'm always forgetting things. When my daughter commented on it and made fun of me, that really depressed me.

My husband had a heart attack – at the age of 47! Quite suddenly, without any advance indications. I get sudden pains in the heart region and don't know what causes them.

And if all these problems have to do with the radio station? I'd have to change my whole life, pack my things and go. So I try not to think about it all.

On 2 January 1999 Italy reduced the limit for high-frequency radiation in residential areas to 6 V/m. Switzerland created "free" regions in which levels must not exceed one tenth of the official limits. But in Oberlaindern the radiation is much higher, in some cases more than twice as high. Day and night, also for babies, sick and elderly people. If Oberlaindern were a village in Italy or Switzerland, the radio station would have to shut down immediately.

The people in Oberlaindern are in a situation where they feel helpless. They have their roots here. They do not want to leave the homes and the land that they love. Although they are suffering here.

The people of Oberlaindern have patiently suffered and sacrificed 50 years for the "Voice of Freedom".

Now they are hoping that the USA will come to their rescue for a second time.

• From the expert's opinion of engineer Wuschek of 28 October 1996 (pp 54-58) after measurements in the vicinity of the radio station:
  
  "Presently the radiation from the IBB station in Oberlaindern is so strong that an effect on pacemakers in the region of the housing cannot be excluded. For this reason the operators of the station were called upon in April 1996 by the federal post and telecommunications office (BAPT) to remedy the situation within six months."
  
  "Increased occurrence of impairments to health, like sleeplessness as well as socalled psychovegetative disturbances (nervousness, restlessness, headache, etc), must be expected."
• From the expert's opinion of Prof. Kaes "Effects of electromagnetic fields on persons in the communities Valley, Holzkirchen and Warngau by the IBB radio station" (7 August 1998, p 19 f):
  
  "Operating high-power transmitters in this frequency band where the populated surroundings cannot be safeguarded against undesirable radiation by special antenna design or shielding measures is a contradiction of modern knowledge of the biological effect of electromagnetic fields and the entire principle of protecting human life."
• From a publication by the Bavarian department of the environment (environment and development, materials no. 99, 1994):
  
  "In addition to the fear that exposure to electromagnetic fields can promote the development of cancer, a number of other health impairments are discussed that are ascribed to low field strength. These include sleep disorders combined with nervousness, inner unease, irritability, weakness of concentration and memory, lack of motive power, headache, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, difficulty in breathing, tinnitus, sight defects, depression and other manifestations of stress."
• Prof. Abelin, Bern University, after several scientific studies of a shortwave broadcaster in Schwarzenburg, on the first channel of German television (ARD) on 8 March 1999:
  
  "It really surprised us how much more frequent these ailments were among those living closer to the station and where we measured stronger electromagnetic fields. I had not expected the impact to be so marked. So I think the population around the station really did suffer from it, and I am very satisfied that they have been freed from it."
  (The Schwarzenburg shortwave station was dismantled in March 1999.)

• First channel of German television (ARD): "The Globe"
• First channel of German television (ARD): "The Fliege Talkshow"
• Second channel of German television (ZDF): "The Electrosmog Risk"
• Bavarian television: "Live Citizens' Forum"
• Bavarian television: "Deadly Disturbances of Rhythm"
• Bavarian television: "Mirror of Our Times"
• RTL: "Spiegel TV"
• RTL: "Point 12"
• RTL: "Munich Live"
• TV Oberland: "Electrosmog"

Added to this there have been numerous reports in daily newspapers and radio programs.

If the United States of America continues to broadcast from Oberlaindern, the community and its citizens will bring an action against the station in Washington D.C.

Then the subject will also become of interest to US media.

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Copyright: Sender-Freies-Oberland e.V., Dorfstr.11, D-83626 Valley-Oberlaindern

Translation by Colin Newberry

Design by Grafikbüro Christopher Oberhuemer